Mascherari
by psychedelicstorytime
Summary: Maybe, just maybe, he'd finish this face this year.


Feliciano yelped quietly as his fingers caught painfully under the latch of the trunk, drawing his hand back and shaking it to dispel the worst of the sting. The old latch always had been hard to open, he probably should have had it looked into years ago. He always forgot though, and it always came back to bite him.

Eventually, the stubborn latch gave, and the wooden trunk lid flew open, revealing just what he had been looking for. He smiled happily at the familiar faces, all decorated in imaginative ways; He picked one of his familiar friends up, examining the colors in the sunlight coming through the window pane.

Feliciano had been making masks for years, it was something that had become ingrained into his very personality. He had always loved to paint, and he applied the new thinks he learned to the masks. Often, he would see something, a flower, maybe a bird, or perhaps a beautiful woman that would give him an idea for a mask, and this idea he would hold with him all day, jumping a little more than usual, being a little twitchier than usual, until he could make it home and sketch out the idea so he could sit down at a later time and begin assembling the new face.

His brother, Lovino, had always told him his masks were a little creepy. He always said that Feliciano's face was fine enough, and that he didn't need to go about the business of making a thousand new ones to hide behind. So, Feliciano had finally decided to keep that particular handicraft of his to himself, sitting quietly in a familiar old house in Venice, a house that Feliciano had lived in for years, watching the city grow and begin to sink, slowly breaking his heart.

Feliciano put that the mask back into the trunk, eyes passing over the hundreds, maybe thousands of faces that he had donned over the years, eyes catching on one that showed its immense age. He picked it up, hands running gently over the smooth surface, wincing when some of the paint flaked off. It was of a size that would be appropriate for a child, and Feliciano could see in his mind's eye the mask as it was when it was brand new, ablaze with brilliant gold and deep red, the feathers on the side regal and stiff. It had never been worn, Feliciano knew that, the person who it had been intended for had never come home to receive it. It was one of the only two masks in that trunk that were not Feliciano's own.

He bit his lip and set it back inside with the utmost care, a sigh coming out of his lungs. He leaned forward, looking through different masks from different years, one fiery scarlet, another a beautiful blue, another in varying shades of white, startlingly clean except for some ominous dark brown stains across it, splattered erratically. He shuddered and pushed that one farther away from his hands. That was a carnival that he had wished he could just forget. He finally found his latest project, and held it fondly, running his fingertips along the strongly defined brow. Laying it on the desk, He reached towards the top of the desk, picking up a paintbrush and pulling some paint out of the drawer, and he completed the motion by pulling a mug of water towards himself. He set to mixing colors until he had just the right shade of green before applying it in think layers around the left eye. He set the mask down again, reaching to get more supplies out of a drawer, along with dozens of sketches that were only half finished. This particular mask had been in production for years, because no matter how lovely people had said he had done with each previous version, he couldn't help but think that it didn't capture the essence of what had inspired him to begin with. But this one seemd just right, so far, and his hope was slowly being renewed.

He smiled and thought that maybe, just maybe this would be the year that he would finish the mask and bring Ludwig to the Carnival.

_**A/N:**_

_**Hello guys! Long time no see. First of all, I'd sincerely like to apologize for the lack of updates on "My favorite fool." Unfortunately, school has been preventing me from doing much writing, and the new chapter was deleted on accident by some one who I share the computer with…**_

_**So I'm in the process of trying to rewrite it and make really nice for all of you! I'm sorry to all of you that are waiting for that! **_

_**Beyond this, I hope you enjoyed this…drabble? Is that what you call it? I wanted to try something a little short to see if I could make the most out of my words and get an impact. Basically, I'm trying to be more concise, though it probably didn't work.**_

_**Either way, Thank you for reading, Critiques are appreciated. I honestly don't know whether I'll ever build on this or not. I'll let you all know if I do.**_

_**-P.S. **_


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